The parents of a congressional intern murdered in Washington, D.C, emotionally thanked U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro on Friday after the Trump administration announced charges against two teens for the homicide.
Two unidentified 17-year-olds have been charged as adults for killing 21-year-old Eric Tarpinian-Jachym, 21 with a stray bullet, local media outlets reported. On “The Story with Martha MacCallum,” the mother, Tamara, and father, Robert, were tearful as they expressed their gratitude.
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“I would like to thank you, Judge, for doing your job in D.C. And I always respected you even before you had this position. I also want to thank all the detectives and everybody who has worked tirelessly on this case,” Tamara said through tears. “It was a shock. We heard for the first time from your news conference what exactly happened with Eric and what kind of guns.”
“I just, we are very, very thankful and hopefully that this will continue of finding all these for all these homicide victims that they will get their due justice too for their families because it’s not fun to be in this club,” she continued. “And my heart goes out to all the other families who have lost children to senseless homicide. And thank you so much.”
Tamara then prompted Robert to speak.
“Judge Pirro, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. And if I ever meet you, I want to give you a big hug for Eric,” he said. “Thank you again.”
“My heart goes out to you. The fight’s not over yet,” Pirro told the grief-stricken parents. “We’ve got a prosecution and we’ve got a long time of connecting going forward to get you justice. And we will get you justice.”
Pirro reportedly underscored the suspects’ prior criminal records as an example of what she deems overly lenient juvenile crime laws in the nation’s capital.
Eric was a University of Massachusetts Amherst student interning for Republican Rep. Ron Estes of Kansas when he was shot dead near the Mount Vernon Square Metro Station on June 30, police previously said. He was not the target of the shooting, which was “the result of an ongoing neighborhood crew dispute,” Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) Commander Kevin Kentish said on Friday, according to NBC4 Washington.
“The D.C. [City] Council thinks these kids need to be protected. They don’t need to be protected,” Pirro said, according to NBC4 Washington. “They need to be held accountable, and we need to be protected.”
The two suspects reportedly face first-degree murder charges. Authorities are still searching for a third suspect in the killing.
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